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Sunday, March 21, 2010

Pizza Please!

When Amy announced the theme of Go Ahead Honey, It's Gluten Free was Guiltless Pleasures, I immediately thought of pizza. If you've looked at my before and after photos, you may have noticed a little picture of me holding a pizza. That's because I used to work at a pizza place in college, and boy did I eat pizza. And eat. And eat. You know how people say you get tired of eating something once you've worked there long enough? Not true. I never got tired of it. I did, however, get quite tired of the inevitable weight gain that comes along with eating pizza on a daily basis.

When I moved to NYC and started losing weight, pizza became an occasional treat. No more eating it every day, but this is New York after all. You have to try the pizza! Then, right before I stopped eating gluten, a new, delicious pizza place opened up around the corner from my apartment. I only got to try it twice. Sometimes I still walk by and get a little twinge of sadness. Not just because it's good pizza, but also because it's within walking distance and the closest gluten free pizza places require getting on the subway. I love pizza, but not usually enough to go into Manhattan for it. I've also tried some good frozen pizzas from the grocery store, but do I really love pizza enough to pay $10 for a frozen one? Not really. At least not very often.

So of course the solution was to learn how to make my own pizza. Making it myself, I was able to add some of the healthier flours such as millet and amaranth. Plus it's much easier on my wallet. Guiltless? Check. A pleasure? Certainly. And thus you get my guiltless pleasure.

Okay okay, let's be honest. I still couldn't eat this every night. But I can certainly freeze the leftovers and eat it once a week.

Now here's the great thing about this pizza. If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that I've been making various versions of it all week. The recipe I'm posting is my favorite, but you can definitely play around with this, so if you don't have all of the ingredients on hand, you can still try it. The xantham gum and apple cider vinegar are probably necessary, but I've tried different flour combinations, baking powder instead of the yeast, water instead of milk, and three types of oil. They all produced a decent pizza crust. This particular combination is more than decent though. Dare I say it? It's bold, but I'll say it anyway. I don't think it tastes gluten free.

Oh and one more thing, since Maggie asked. It's super easy and fast to make. Definitely something you can whip up last minute. 10 minutes to prep, 10 minutes to rise, and 30 minutes in the oven, which gives you plenty of time to make a side salad.

In a large bowl, stir together the dry ingredients until completely mixed. Set aside.

Pour the milk into a small pan on the stove and gently heat. If you don't have a thermometer (I don't), heat the milk until it feels slightly warm on your fingertip. Turn off the heat and pour the yeast into the milk. Stir with a fork.

In a second large bowl, whisk the egg whites until frothy. Add the rest of the wet ingredients, continuing to whisk.

Whisk the milk and yeast into the wet ingredients. Pour that into the dry ingredients.

Stir it all together until completely mixed. At this point, you'll have a ball of dough. You can either make one large pizza or smaller individual pizzas.

Spray a cookie sheet with oil and sprinkle with cornmeal (rice flour will work fine too). Roll your dough out thin on the sheet. You'll need to sprinkle it with more cornmeal on top to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin. I liked the crust best when it was rolled out very thin, almost like pie crust.

Place the cookie sheet with the dough in a warm spot (like on top of the oven) for 10 minutes.

Bake the crust for 10 minutes.

Take out and top with your favorite pizza toppings (sauce, cheese, etc.) and place back in the oven for another 20 minutes.

Update 3.25.10: This is also an easy recipe to make ahead and freeze. Rather than making one large pizza, make individual mini-pizzas. Allow them to rise 10 minutes as directed and bake for 10 minutes. Then take out and cool. Put in a container in the freezer to grab whenever you want a quick pizza dinner. Just take it out, top it, and put it in the oven (or toaster oven) for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.Serves 4-6
Now that I've just about used up my stock of gluten free flours, I'll have to go it GFE style for a while. Meaning, no special gluten free ingredients. Let's see if I can come up with a recipe that anyone can make with normal ingredients. Perhaps something sweet to lure all the gluten-happy people over to the gluten-free side...

Glad to hear that your hard work paid off! I've been following on twitter too, and waiting impatiently for this post. The pictures look amazing. I think you can claim the "It doesn't taste gluten free". It definitely doesn't look gluten free! Well done. <3

Well, it looks awesome, Iris! I'll sub another flour for the sorghum and tapioca for sure (as those are on my own no list), but it seems doable. That crust looks really, really good. :-) While I've been happy with my flourless pizza from time to time, an easy pizza with a good crust sounds like just the ticket at the moment! I have to say I would have never thought of pizza as a guiltless pleasure, but bravo, my dear! :-)

Thanks, too, for the shout out. As I tweeted to you, ironically, I was using millet yesterday, but most of the time, it's regular old ingredients that anyone would use, gluten free or not. ;-) I'll be looking forward to what you come up with!

Thanks for the shout-out! I will try to cut out the eggs too maybe, or perhaps Sarah will report back and tell me how to do it! I love the process of this dough - sounds super easy. Thanks for posting after my bugging!

I love recipes with grapeseed oil! I'm allergic to olives, and a lot of allergy-wise bloggers like to use olive oil (it's healthy, I know, but it doesn't like me). I'll definitely need to try your recipe soon. Speaking of ingredients, I would love to know where you purchase your specialty flours. Do you buy them in bulk? Locally? I've typically gone the lazy way out and purchased mixes, but I'd love to know your tactics for good deals (speaking from a limited budget here).

Katherine, I'm a bit lazy myself. I think buying in bulk would probably be the best (I hear you can do that from Amazon at a good price), but since I never know what I want until I need it, I generally go to a Fairway near me that's about $1 cheaper per bag than other stores. Wish I could be of more help!

Darryn, substitute away! I tried it with extra virgin olive oil, which was a little heavy. Light olive oil worked better. And I actually thought coconut oil might be the best option, but I'm sensitive to coconut so I try to work without it.

yum!! can't wait to try this! I've been wanting pizza so so badly lately! For some reason though, in grocery stores, they only sell the GF crust with non-vegan cheese on it, and the only pizzas they sell with vegan cheese are all made with gluten! hmph!

I will have to try your recipe. I've tried to make pizza dough from scratch before and always ended up with a sticky mess.

I usually wait until I really want pizza and then go to Z-Pizza but I can make that little 10-inch pizza last for 3 meals! But I would love to be able to make a great crust at home and feel like it's a "guiltless" pleasure.

Your pizza looks dynamite. I have a special weakness for pizza myself. So far I have had good luck with my crust recipes (to the point where my family wants to eat the gluten free pizza rather than regular!).

Amaranth flour is something I have yet to bake with , I will have to give it a go soon.

Hi Alleyoops, This particular version with yeast I think would be fine with flax eggs, although I haven't tried it. I've had success veganizing other yeast recipes with flax eggs. I also made a vegan and yeast-free version for my cookbook, The Essential Gluten-Free Baking Guide, Part One. That one uses a combination of flax and psyllium eggs and can be found in the book (obviously) and in this review: http://www.dailybitesblog.com/2012/03/20/iris-brittanys-vegan-pizza-crust/